


Lesson Learned

by Cameron_McKell



Series: Upon Further Review [36]
Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010), Tron: Uprising
Genre: Escape, Gen, Gridbugs, Silly, Tron Fanworks Month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 20:42:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1401799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cameron_McKell/pseuds/Cameron_McKell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam really should have known better than to play with unknown creatures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lesson Learned

**Author's Note:**

> For Tron Fanworks Month on Tumblr Week 4 - Lulz.

“Uh, Sam? I don't think touching it's such a good idea...” Alan cautioned, eyeballing the small, multi-legged creature scuttling in circles between Sam's outstretched palms. Blatantly ignoring the older User's reservations, Sam lightly nudged the little thing in the back with a finger. He waited while it swiveled its tiny eye-stalk/head around to look for what pushed it, then nudged it with his opposite hand.

 

“Leave it alone, Sam,” Alan sighed, then looked around as if doing so would make Tron magically appear to either talk some sense into Sam, or distract him. “We've got work to do.”

 

“I'm not hurting it,” Sam replied, somewhat defensively, and Alan had to concede that point; all his touches and nudges were gentle, and there was plenty of room for it to escape from between his hands. Sam turned to give Alan his best 'responsible adult' look, and maybe to check the horizon for himself. “Besides, Tron said they were going to meet us he-OW!”

 

Alan hurried over as Sam jumped away from the broken chunk of unknown building he'd found the little bug-thing on, clutching his right hand with his left against his chest. “What happened?”

 

“It bit me!” Sam squawked, looking over the hand in question.

 

Alan looked at the 'it' in question, which stared back at the two of them, intently. “But it doesn't have a  _ mouth _ .”

 

Sam had the finger in question – the middle – stuck in his mouth, and was therefore unable to reply verbally, so he pulled the other fingers into a fist and also stared at Alan intently.

 

Alan raised his hands in surrender, then turned to examine the creature – after all, it could be digitally poisonous or something – but stopped short. “Hey, where did it go?”

 

Anger forgotten for the moment, Sam let his hand drop – and the angry red skin of his finger looked more like a  _ burn _ than a bite – and joined Alan in looking for it. “That thing's, like, an  _ inch _ tall; it can't have gotten very far –”

 

“There!” Alan shouted, pointing to a tiny body scuttling away from the building chunk toward the building the chunk had come from.

 

The eyestalk/head – /mouth? – swiveled around to face them as it kept moving away, and suddenly the two Users had to run to keep up with it as it zoomed through the doorway.

 

They stumbled to a halt in the darkened interior, and Alan squinted to try and see better; he could hear it skittering around, but either it was just too fast, or the building was designed to echo, so he couldn't find it that way.

 

“This is just great,” Sam grumbled quietly, then ventured several steps further in.

 

“I told you not to mess with it,” Alan reminded him, lingering by the door in case it tried to sneak back out around them.

 

“Yeah, yeah. Hindsight. You told me so. Repeat ad nauseum.” Sam waved dismissively back at Alan, and turned to walk behind a shape Alan only saw as he passed it.

 

The skittering sound seemed to get louder, then something off in the darkness crashed to the floor.

 

“Sam?!” Alan tried to call out calmly and failed, then started picking his way further inside.

 

“I'm fine!” Sam called out, then reappeared from behind the apparently-a-wall.

 

“Was that you?” he asked, walking up to Sam to be easily heard over the increasing skittering sounds.

 

“No,” Sam shook his head, then turned to look back the way he'd come from. “I think it was a –” His sentence cut off abruptly.

 

Confused, Alan followed his gaze.

 

The hallway was filled with little points of red light, rapidly advancing on the pair.

 

Alan started backing away, “Sam?...”

 

Sam did the same, “Yeah?...”

 

“RUN!” Fitting words to action, Alan took off running, Sam not far behind.

 

They burst out onto the street just as the building shuddered ominously. Alan slowed to check behind them, but Sam pushed him to keep going, toward their parked light runner.

 

A massive  _ swarm _ of the bugs – wait.

 

These were  _ Gridbugs _ . Those things Tron was  _ always _ warning them about.

 

The swarm burst out of the building after them, some of them literally bursting through the wall, causing the remaining portion of the building to groan and tilt ominously.

 

“Get in the car, get in the car, get in the car,” Sam babbled frantically, sliding over the light runner's hood as if they were in Hazzard county instead of the Grid while Alan climbed into the nearer side and started it up.

 

Sam was half inside the vehicle when it jolted forward, so he could do little more than hold on for dear life while his surrogate father figure drove like a maniac to leave the horde of tiny bodies and eyestalks/heads/mouths/pure evil behind.

 

Eventually, Sam managed to wrangle himself the rest of the way into the light runner, and he collapsed gratefully. “I have _officially_ learned my lesson.”

 

As if summoned by the declaration, the light runner's audio communication system turned on.

 

“Sam, Alan-One? I apologize for the delay, but I should be at the meeting location in 2.37 microcycles; I was delayed processing a sudden influx of compatibility conflicts.”

 

Sam and Alan shared a horrified look, then reluctantly turned the light runner around.


End file.
